Worldwide outrage at the scenes of desolation.
"Barbarian", "immoral", "war crime": the bombardment of a pediatric hospital by Russian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol provoked the indignation of the Ukrainian authorities and Westerners, while the Russian army approached this Thursday from Kiev, according to the Ukrainian general staff.
This attack, which left 17 injured, came on the eve of discussions on Thursday in Turkey between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers, their first face-to-face since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine there. at two weeks.
A “war crime”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who condemned a "war crime", shared videos showing the destruction - after an air raid - of the establishment, which housed a maternity hospital and a pediatric hospital, in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov (southeast).
Interiors of buildings can be seen blown away, debris, sheets of paper and shards of glass littering the ground.
The White House for its part denounced a "barbaric" use of force against civilians and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the bombing as "immoral".
"There are no children" among the injured and "no dead", according to a report provided by the local authorities.
Nine days of siege
The bombardment occurred while women were giving birth in the hospital, which had just been re-equipped, a member of the military administration of the Donetsk region told AFP.
The Russian government did not deny the attack, but claimed that Ukrainian "nationalist battalions" were using the hospital as a firing base.
The nine days of siege of Mariupol have already killed 1,207 people, the town hall said on Wednesday evening.
In its latest report on Wednesday, the UN estimated that 516 civilians have been killed and more than 800 injured in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, which threw more than two million refugees on the roads of exile.
Kiev caught in a vice
In an update on the situation at local midnight (22:00 GMT Wednesday), the Ukrainian General Staff indicated that the Russian forces were continuing their "offensive operation" to encircle Kiev, while attacking on other fronts the cities of Izium, Petrovske, Hrouchouvakha, Sumy, Okhtyrka, or in the regions of Donetsk and Zaparojie.
Columns of Russian tanks were only about fifteen kilometers away on Wednesday, near Brovary.
At 30 km from this locality, fighting also took place near Rusaniv, said Ukrainian soldiers.
“The columns of Russian tanks yesterday took two villages a few kilometers away.
They shoot to scare people and force them to stay at home, steal what they can to get supplies and settle among the inhabitants, so that the Ukrainian forces do not bomb them,” said Volodymyr, who lives not far from Brovary.
Sumy region military administration chief Dmytro Jivitsky said on Thursday that two women and a 13-year-old boy had just been killed in a nighttime shelling in Velyka Pysarivka.
He also announced that three humanitarian corridors, with different starting points, should open on Thursday to evacuate residents of the region to the city of Poltava.
35,000 civilians evacuated
Russia and Ukraine agreed on Wednesday on ceasefires to allow the establishment of humanitarian corridors around areas hard hit in recent days by fighting, which has forced civilians to remain sometimes for days hidden in cellars.
At least 35,000 civilians were evacuated on Wednesday from Sumy, Enerhodar and areas near the capital Kiev, President Zelensky announced on Wednesday evening.
Several corridors were also planned in order to let the inhabitants of towns to the west of the capital retreat towards Kiev.
Talks in Turkey
This Thursday, Serguei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba will be received by Turkish Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Antalya (south), a seaside resort popular with Russian tourists.
On Wednesday, Dmytro Kuleba assured in a video on Facebook that he would do everything to make the "talks (be) as effective as possible" while confiding that he had "limited expectations".
"I don't have high hopes but we will do everything to get the most out of it," he said, saying "everything will depend on the instructions Lavrov receives before these talks."
Antalya is Sergei Lavrov's first outing from Russia, increasingly isolated by Western sanctions targeting it, since the start of the war on February 24.
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War in Ukraine: Kiev and Moscow moderate their demands ahead of Thursday's talks in Turkey
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War in Ukraine LIVE: Zelensky denounces a “war crime” in Mariupol… Talks in Turkey Thursday morning…
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